Mason-Dixon survey map hits auction with $800,000 floor

A hand-drawn survey of the Mason-Dixon Line is going up for auction this Thursday. The document physically separates the northern free states from the southern slave states in American memory. It is being sold via livestream by Brunk Auctions in Asheville, North Carolina.

Lauren Brunk, the firm's vice president, estimates the map will sell for between $800,000 and $1.2 million. The seller is anonymous. The price tag reflects the artifact's status as a tangible link to the era that led to the Civil War.

The original survey was conducted by Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon. Their work settled a border dispute between the colonies of Maryland and Pennsylvania. The line was not originally designed to divide free and slave territories. That association emerged later when the 1820 Missouri Compromise used the boundary to limit human bondage.

The physical map is a strip of paper mounted on Japanese rice paper. It measures 76 inches long and 6.5 inches tall. The artifact has a long chain of custody. It was given to the family of attorney Benjamin Chew shortly after its creation. The Chew family held the document until 1982.

In 1982, publisher Malcolm S. Forbes bought the map for $360,000. He outbid the Library of Congress at the time. That purchase set a record for the highest price ever paid for an American map. The map changed hands again in 2002. A vertical section showing the Delaware-Maryland border is currently housed at Princeton University.

Brunk contacted the Library of Congress to see if they intended to bid. Officials said their current budgets did not allow for the purchase. They indicated they would welcome a private buyer to acquire the document on their behalf.

The auction takes place this Thursday. Bidders can participate through a live stream. The map remains the only surviving original copy of the survey that defined the geographic and cultural divide in the United States.